What Did You Do Today 2025

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Spent the afternoon at Chickerell Steam & Vintage Show 2025 ( near Weymouth).

Quite a cramped site in a valley and the stewards made an excellent task of marshalling the single entrance / exit on the fairly busy B3157, and crucially of course, the movement of some two dozen traction engines & steam wagons plus a plethora of other vehicles, among very many visitors.

The Show is very miniatures-friendly with about 40 miniature steam road vehicles, and a sprinkling of  radio-controlled military models. The miniatures can and do amble freely around the grounds while the full-sizes have to slumber on the sidelines apart from arena parades and a saw-bench demonstration (fenced of course).

On the Saturday evening as I was driving home from elsewhere, on passing the show ground I saw ahead a thin smoke plume at the crest of a sizeable hill, and was surprised to discover this was not from a full-size engine just over the skyline but two miniatures of around 4-inch scale, a general-purpose traction-engine and a roller, pulled into a small layby at the summit.

I learnt the TE owner is very intrepid with it, having ventured into Weymouth on Friday and Saturday evenings to find chips and ice-creams: a round-trip of eight miles on busy roads with many twelve-inch-to-the-foot hills.

 

My home club (Weymouth) was well represented with several steaming their miniature TEs, and others operating their 16mm-scale locomotives and trains on the club’s portable display (but not scenic) table-height track in the Model Tent.

This marquee was a delight to explore with not a huge number but a very rich range, with a sprinkling of model-engineering exhibits, a collection of Meccano models, a display of models of unusual work-boats (these had come all the way from Hayle), some superb miniature houses …. and what may be described as pure fun! This last being conveyor-type machines, not strictly models, moving marbles or ball-bearings in very ingenious ways around endless circuits. The rubric above a display of beautiful wood-engineering revealed amusingly that the maker had the company of a nest of swifts above the lathe, and had to be careful to avoid trampling robin chicks on the workshop floor. Intriguing that the birds seemed to have no qualms about this human sharing their chosen nest-site.

 

The programme cover photograph is of the late Len Watts’ ex-Eldridge – Pope Brewery, Austin K4 lorry he had driven professionally, and bought for preservation. On it at the Show was Len’s freelance Showman’s Road Locomotive, to perhaps 2-3 inch scale, with its distinctive cast-steel rear wheels Len always said were from Bren-gun carrier’s tracks.

This same lorry bore his coffin on Len’s final journey a few months ago, with the showman’s engine, eaves lamps on, in leading position on the platform.

Within the programme, we read this year’s show was in memoriam of both Len, and of Mr. Stephen Vine, whose family own the host farm.

 

Sorry about the quality of the snaps, taken with a small camera in my shaky hands and with the screen very difficult to see. These full-parade images give more a flavour of the rally than an engine-spotter’s exercise. The miniatures and their owners, incidentally, were all encamped in a sizeable “model avenue” area but this saw unfortunately few public visitors because it was not clearly signed, and to most visitors probably seemed just the exhibitors’ camp-site.

The Burrell roller in the second photo was one of the two engines I passed on the road yesterday (Saturday) evening. Beyond it, in the full-sizers’ line-up, are a Mann steam-cart and a Stanley Steam-car.

 

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Model-engineering club evening – performing a boiler test on a loco, after which, over tea (in the tea room!) off-the wall entertainment from two members who’d brought their cajon drums to demonstrate.

New to me, this instrument: pronounced “cahon” (Spanish) it is a stout plywood box with its front acting as the head and the whole case forming the seat for the player who uses his hands rather as when playing bongoes.  The head gives a bass drum effect when slapped centrally, a snare-drum sound when played on the edge, with snares that can be engaged or disengaged as on a regular snare drum.

We learn something every day!

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Your Chickerell pics seem to have slipped in under the radar, thanks for the pics and taking the time to write-up!

 

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, not model engineering, but a bit of domestic engineering of sorts, as I swopped out my water trap in my kitchen cupboard, for a different one, so out came all the cleaning bottles and and sprays and other junk, and it soon became apparent that it needed a good muck out altogether, and that’s when I found a freebie that was attached to an ME in 1992.

The black ink that was on the lettering etc. has all but gone, save for a few though, but it is still useable, not that I remember using it that much. I probably put it in there with the intention of giving it a good clean, which didn’t get done until today.

Regards Nick.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

have my ‘Andy Angle’ too, Nick

A tidy little moulding, but I’m pretty-sure I’ve never actually used it for anything

… maybe invaluable was the wrong word 🙁

MichaelG.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Does that mean you haven’t emptied the cupboard since 1992?  Even by my standards that’s a long time.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Duncan, no it hasn’t been that long. I think I found it in my garage, looking a bit dirty a while ago, and put it in there, and forgot about it.

Regards Nick.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi MichaelG, I might have used the two rulers a few times, and maybe the centre finder, but that’s about it, and not for a long time though. I think you are right about invaluable not being the right word.

Regards Nick.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Completed a set of M6 Tee-nuts for my Harrison L5’s boring-table.

This was beautifully made, but not quite completed, by a gentleman in Norfolk and I came by it via ads on here from his daughter helping him slim his workshop.

The most nerve-wracking task I had was locating the seating for the nut, which was very difficult to measure until I twigged how to use the standard cross-slide to set the mill.

…..

Now I have a problem even reaching the workshop at the end of the garden….

A baby gull fell from a precarious nest high on the chimney, survived the fall and now resides the area just outside the kitchen door, under the very aggressively close watch of Mummy Gull, feeding the little fluff-ball down on the ground. It came to the point that I had to dash for the lockable side gate to set that as the access to and from the garden, but I can’t even safely hang out the washing or tend the nature-reserve trying to be a garden.

At one point the adult, perched up on the chimney, saw me in the workshop door and made one those baleful swoops that gulls use to frighten you away.

I don’t know how long it will take the little blighter to develop its wings, and for both it and parent(s?) to give me my garden back, but it’s no fun having your home life dictated by a blasted flying rat!

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Nigel Graham 2, yes those gulls can get very aggressive when they have their young, in my last day job, two years running we were contracted to a local company to do their annual shutdown maintenance, (there were other contractors on site as well). but the young gulls would be up and about on the ground, and if you had to walk past them, you would more than likely to have a parent gull swooping at you in an aggressive manner, there was a very large amount of gulls that raised their young on this site and neighbouring sites. We did hear of one guy in one of the other contractors, actually being viciously attacked by one of these gulls. Not many people would be walking around outside without their hard hats on.

Regards Nick.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Diogenes –

Thankyou! Only just spotted your comment about my Chickerell item.

.

Nick –

They are only defending their young and cannot know whether the approaching animal of any species is harmless or predator. It is very alarming and hazardous though. One evening the baby was being stalked by a cat, using a fuschia bush to hide from the adult. I chased the cat away but now can’t help thinking I should have done my David Attemborough bit and let Nature take its course. Not long after that the same cat dashed across my garden and over the wall with something in its mouth, but I could not tell if young bird or rodent.

Using my side gate seemed moderately safe because I was not ever so close to the young ‘un, and so I managed a couple of hours in the workshop.

There was also a young gull on the shed roof, but one capable of flying. I am not sure but I think his nest is on the shed backing onto mine. It didn’t take much notice of me.

.

I put the boring-table and its T-nuts to one side to start salvaging a 4″ chuck I had acquired from the estate of a deceased fellow club-member.

Either he or some previous owner had turned a deep, square groove into the grip faces of the 3 jaws. I assume this is to hold thin discs.

Worse though, he had also welded a sizeable mild-steel stub with a smallish hole drilled through it, to the outside of the chuck backplate. Not the spindle mounting plate, but the cast-iron one covering the gears; and not on the outer surface but down in a recess!

I think the owner had used the chuck as a sort of vice for holding round bar vertically, for it also had a simple bracket screwed to the back, as if for holding in a bench-vice.

The chuck rear body is now on the Harrison lathe, centred as closely as I could in a 4-jaw chuck, for boring out the stub to the lathe’s spindle diameter.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, not today but yesterday, I went to the Weeting Steam Rally

Beside the regular line up of Traction engines, Tractors, Cars, and motor Bikes and others in the main arena, there were a good many of stationary engines on display.

 

There were various other attractions also including a Fun-fare, miniature train ride, a craft tent, and many trades stands, and much more.

Regards Nick.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

View from the footplate of Carry On (Saunders Collection)

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

This was interesting in the harvesting field. It’s a field drain trencher.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

is that what they call a mole plough?

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

No, a mole plough is a vertical blade with a torpedo shape welded to the bottom. The object is to create voids under the surface much like a mole run.
Field drains would be created by burying porous clay pipes in a trench such as the tractor shown is making.

 

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

A mole tended to be a torpedo shape on a single blade that just opened up the subsoil to aid drainage. I have seen trenchers like this where it was followed by a wagon full of gravel that was used to fill the trench so formed more of a french drain.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Mole

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Sorry but mole ploughjs were used by BT for cable laying as well

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Looks a fime Rally! It is good to see the unusual machines as well, like the trencher.

I didn’t know they are called ‘French Drains’ but the gravel-filled trenches Jason mentions, are common on the slopes of road cuttings, usually with tributaries in a ‘Y’ or trident formation.

That “driver’s eye” view from ‘Carry On’ is striking for showing just limited the visibility is for the driver. I don’t think the steersman has it much better, from his very precarious perch.

At Chickerell, the owner of a miniature showman’s road locomotive told me a woman asked him why no “pretty lights” (along the eaves), and he had to explain they were not normal in the full-size engines’ working days! I don’t think the engines even had electric lamps for the gauges: the driver had to rely on a hurricane-lamp.

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Anyone know how that trencher is driven? ..or should that be ‘if’.. ?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

BT and the like still use moles today but mostly pneumatic, might plough virgin ground. The image I posted has a hole in the rear of the torpedo should you want to drag something through behind.

Some of the trenchers have a facility to feed a coil of flexible perforated pipe into the trench before it gets filled with gravel if used for land drainage or just used as a conduit for cable/pipe in which case it is mor elikely to just be backfilled with teh soil that comes out

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

The trencher is driven from the power take off on the tractor. The ‘spades’ are geared down and rotate quite slowly. There is an oscillating sweep in front of the trench to tidy the spoil. A cam operates a ratchet winch which winds in a cable running up and over the tractor to an anchorage providing a steady forward motion. Occasional steerage corrections are required.

The trencher was working on very sandy ground. I did ask how it managed heavier land and it apparently works better and produces a much cleaner trench albeit slower.

The view from the showman’s engine Carry On was from the steersman’s position. Generally there would be at least 2 people on the engine so both sides are being watched.

Just for good measure I include a pic from Lion.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I did a bit of soldering

Then machined the fabrication as if it were a casting but without all the possible faults castings can have.

 

Then a bit more machining and soldering

 

Cut away the unwanted metal, bit of filing and try some bits together

Quite pleased with how it came out considering I use two ER chucks that are said to be not fit for purpose and a vice that may not be square😀

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